


The History We Have

by rebelmeg



Series: Rebelmeg's Tony Stark Bingo Fills 2019 [21]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, Bucky is learning boundaries, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Developing Friendships, Forgiveness, Gen, Hostage Situations, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Hydra (Marvel), Kidnapped Tony Stark, Mind Control, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Protective Bucky Barnes, Recovered Memories, Time Skips, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, friendly stalking, some dark parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 10:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: Hydra sends an infiltration team to kidnap the child of Howard Stark, in order to ransom the supersolider serum prototype from him.That the boy is not only willing to go with them, but places himself directly in the care of the Winter Soldier, is unexpected.





	1. Take Me Away With You

**Author's Note:**

> HEED THE TAGS, PEEPS. Especially the first few.
> 
> This fic knocks out two squares, one for the BBB, U1 – stick and stones may break your bones (and here I must add, "but words will always hurt you") and for the TSB, S5 – never meant to hurt you
> 
> Cinnamon_Anemone was my fan-freaking-tastic beta for this, and it's so much better thanks to her!
> 
> (I know, another angsty kid!Tony and protective!Bucky fic, even though we just had one, I know. I would apologize, but I regret nothing.)

It was one of the darkest nights Tony Stark had ever known in all his five years of life. If he’d been able to sleep, he might have even had nightmares, because there wasn’t any moonlight out his window to see by, to scare away the shadows.

But he couldn’t sleep. It hurt too much.

Howard had been drinking again. That’s what Mama called it. Tony didn’t really understand what it meant, just that whenever it happened, Howard seemed dizzy and angry and he smelled strange. Tony always tried to sneak away and hide when his father was like that, afraid of the way Howard would yell and throw things. He’d gotten hit in the head, once, by a statue on one of the tables in the downstairs hall, when Howard had thrown it. It had hurt so bad that Tony had thrown up, and cried as blood dripped down his face through his hair. Jarvis had taken him to the hospital with his mother, and afterwards Howard didn’t get angry like that again for a long time.

He did tonight, though. Tony had been playing, building a train track that ran all the way around his room, and then even out into the hall. He was just putting the finishing touches on it, setting up his engine and all the cars at the little toy depot in the hall, when he’d heard something behind him.

Howard had come stumbling up the hall, eyes barely open, clothes wrinkled and twisted funny. Tony had scooted back against the wall, making himself as small as possible, but then Howard had listed too far to one side, and tripped over the box that Tony kept his train set in. 

Tony couldn’t remember some of it very well. Howard had fallen hard, shuffled around on the floor, saying all kinds of bad words, then one of his hands had found one of the train cars.

Tony remembered Howard throwing the car at him, hitting him in the knee, smashing and throwing the pieces of the train track, crushing the little blinking electric light Tony had made just for his train set. He had grabbed Tony by the arm, yanked him up as Tony cried out, and thrown him hard against the wall.

It all went a little fuzzy then. Tony hadn’t been able to hear anything, his ears somehow loud and quiet all at the same time, his head hurting, his arm feeling numb. He had to blink a lot to see again, and Howard was still shouting, his face red, and Tony thought he looked a lot like a monster.

Howard had picked him up off the floor again, and shoved him in his room on top of the rest of the pieces of the train track, slamming the door behind him and locking it.

That had been just after the mailman came in the afternoon, and it was dark now. Jarvis had come up earlier, and knocked on the door quietly, asking Tony if he was alright. But he couldn’t come in. Only Howard had the key, and he only let Mama use it sometimes. Jarvis had come back a little while later, and slid some slices of cheese and meat under the door on a piece of paper, and those had been good, but Tony was getting hungry again.

The bump on his head only hurt if he touched it, but his arm really, really hurt. It felt funny, looked all wrong under his skin, like it was bent the wrong way inside. He couldn’t touch it, though, or it would hurt even more and make him feel sick to his stomach. He held it very still, cradled against his stomach, and that helped a little.

He heard the sound of one of the cars outside, and carefully got off his bed to look out the window, standing on his tiptoes. Jarvis had one of the cars out front, but he was getting out as Howard and Mama came down the steps. They had a party to go to, Tony had watched his mother pick out her dress before lunch, and they wouldn’t be back until late.

Tony stood at the window until the car disappeared, then went back to his bed. It was hard to get up with just one arm, but he had dragged over a few books and used them as a step. He would have liked to read, but Howard didn’t like it when he stayed up late to read, and he would see the light when he came back.

So Tony sat in the dark, carefully cradling his hurt arm in his lap, and now that he knew Howard was gone and wouldn’t know, hot tears started slipping down his face.

“Please send someone to take me away,” He whispered to himself, rocking back and forth as he closed his eyes tight. “Please let someone take me away.”

* * *

The Stark mansion was nearly dark as the Hydra infiltration squad closed in around it. The Asset was on the right side with two others, moving silently through the carefully groomed trees that enclosed the great mansion and drive in a half-circle.

The lights on either side of the double front doors were on, and a surveillance of the rear of the mansion showed a few lights on there, in the kitchen and back entry. As expected, the butler was still awake, but that was taken care of quickly, as were the lights by the back door.

The Asset’s aim was flawless as he shot a tranquilizer dart through one of the kitchen windows that was cracked open to the night air. The dart sliced through the window screen and hit the butler in the shoulder, causing the man to jolt.

He fell almost instantly, a platter with crackers and thin slices of cheese, meat, and produce clattering to the floor.

The infiltration was easy and soundless. The squad had been studying the plans for the mansion for weeks in preparation, and they whispered through the house with barely a sound, moving easily through the darkness.

The Asset had scoped out the target only thirty minutes before, locating him in an upstairs bedroom with the lights off. Chances were good that he was still there.

Two of the squad broke off as they reached the upstairs hall, one staying by the stairs they’d come up, another going further down the hall to watch the other end. The Asset and the three others approached the correct door, and it was the Asset who tried the round doorknob.

It was locked, but that was easily seen to. The only concern was if the target had heard them, but that was why they had tranquilized the butler. Even if the target screamed, as they expected he would, there was nobody around to hear him.

The Asset moved aside to let one of the others pick the lock, and he stood ready to enter the room the moment the door was opened, tucking his gun back over his shoulder. When the lock disengaged a few seconds later, the Asset opened the door and paused in surprise.

The little boy was sitting up on a bed, wide awake and staring at the door with red-rimmed eyes, tear tracks shining on his cheeks. The Asset waited for a reaction, a scream of fear, and he pulled a gag out of his pocket in preparation.

But rather than put up any kind of fuss, the child just looked at the Asset and the others, with their guns and masks, and said, in a small voice, “Are you here to take me away?”

For a moment, the Asset was unsure what to do. This docile reaction was utterly unexpected. Finally he nodded, speaking through the mask covering half of his face. “Yes.”

The target blinked a couple of times, those wide eyes still wet with tears, but then he slid off his bed, wincing a little, and slowly approached. He looked the Asset right in the eye, then held out his hand.

The Asset was so startled that he dropped the gag, and took the offered hand, the little fingers cold against his flesh palm.

The others were just as surprised as he was, but they didn’t say anything about it as they retreated from the room and back down the hallway, guns up. The target stayed quiet, walking along without a peep, one hand in the Asset’s, the other clenched against his stomach.

The van was ready when they got outside, and one after another the squad got in. The target looked up at the Asset when they approached the vehicle. “I’m going too?”

The Asset nodded, and then nearly startled when the boy reached for him. 

“Help me?”

Of course. He was so small…

The drive to the location they had prepared to wait until Howard Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, received their ransom demand was an empty warehouse on the outskirts of the city. All through the drive, the soldiers kept sending sidelong glances at the target, unsettled at the unexpected meekness. The Asset sat stock still through the trip, acutely aware of the child sitting calmly next to him.

The warehouse was large, but rundown, with leaks in the ceiling and puddles on the muddy floor in several places. The soldiers spread out, taking up their positions to secure the area, and the Asset was left standing next to the still-silent target. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left his home, and his cooperation was still something of a shock. Now he looked up at the Asset with large brown eyes, something innocently curious in his expression.

“Does your arm hurt?”

The question took him aback. The Asset glanced down at his flesh arm, the one that was again holding the target’s small hand, then shook his head.

“No, that one.” The boy nodded at the Asset’s other arm, the metal one. “It creaks when you bend your elbow. Is it powered electrically?”

The Asset blinked. “I don’t know.”

“It could be a short, depending on if it uses hydraulics or gears to move. Faulty wiring can cause all kinds of problems.” The target’s eyes were fixed on the metal arm, his entire face alive with curiosity. “Does it hurt? Can you feel with it?”

“Why do you ask?” One of the other soldiers had narrowed his eyes at the boy, and his thickly accented voice was harsh with suspicion.

The target cowered back, stepping in close to the Asset’s side. “I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet.”

Another of the soldiers had taken notice of the child’s questions as well, but he was watching with interest. “You must be very smart.”

The boy paused, then nodded. His voice was quiet now, and hesitant, not the bright inquisitive tone from a moment ago. “I like science and machines.”

“_He could be useful_,” The soldier commented in Russian, and a warning prickled across the back of the Asset’s neck. 

“Is that Russian?” The target asked, bringing several heads around again.

The suspicious soldier barked, “Do you speak Russian, boy?”

He shrank back again at the question, all but plastered to the Asset’s leg. “N-no.”

“_Stop scaring him_.” The other soldier snapped, then looked back at the target. “You recognize Russian?”

The boy nodded, his hair getting messed up as it rubbed against the Asset’s tac pants. “M-my Ana… she’s Hungarian. She’s teaching me. It sounds a little like what you’re saying.”

“Ana? Who is Ana?”

“She’s married to Jarvis. She cooks for us.”

More conversation in Russian rose up, but the Asset only half listened. He was looking down at the target, and after a moment he squeezed his hand. The boy looked up at him, not moving away from his side.

“Are you tired? Do you want to sit?”

The target cocked his head to the side, considering it, then nodded. “I wanna sit.”

The Asset took the boy over to a spot by the wall where the dirt floor was dry, and when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to let go of the Asset’s hand, they both sat, leaning against the wall. The boy’s eyes were bright with curiosity again, watching the other soldiers, looking around at the rest of the inside of the warehouse, glancing up at the Asset.

“Should… should I be quiet?”

“Yes.”

Nodding and looking as if something inside him briefly dimmed, the target fidgeted a little to get more comfortable. And then sat there, still and silent, as time ticked by, barely moving as the minutes rolled past.

One hour.

Two.

Three.

“_It should be soon_.” One of the soldiers remarked as he checked his watch. He glanced over at the Asset and the target. “_He is asleep? _”

The Asset shook his head. He had been tracking every heartbeat, every movement the boy made. Aside from periodic shifting and the occasional sigh, the target had been silent and motionless.

That surprised the soldier. “_He’s been awake this whole time? _”

A nod of assent. “_He is hungry. I can hear it._”  
Another of the soldiers piped up. “_We don’t have anything but food bars. He’s a spoiled little rich kid, he won’t eat it_.”

Ignoring him, the Asset just looked at the first soldier, waiting. Finally, the man sighed and unzipped the bag that had been brought in from the car. A foil-packaged emergency food bar was tossed at the Asset, who caught it with his metal hand.

“Here,” He said as he withdrew a knife from his jacket and cut the package open, “eat this.”

Sitting up a little, the boy took the square of calorically dense food, sniffed it, then started nibbling at it.

He finished it quickly, and the Asset handed over another one, as well as signaling for a canteen of water.

It became obvious then that the target was injured, something the Asset had suspected ever since the boy winced when he slid off his bed hours earlier and allowed himself to be taken from his home. 

As the target took the canteen the Asset held out, the unexpectedly heavy vessel slipped from his small hand and landed on the arm he had cradled in his lap.

The boy cried out in agony, tears instantly welling up his eyes, and his small body jerked with the pain, water from the canteen spilling on his lap and the floor. The Asset retrieved it and closed it, then looked at the target, concern mounting. The boy was rocking back and forth, shaking, and biting his lip so hard he might soon draw blood as tears rolled down his cheeks.

“_What happened? _” The soldier with the bag asked.

“_The target requires immediate medical attention_.” The Asset reported tersely. 

“_How? We didn’t touch him._”

Ignoring the question, the Asset turned his body slightly and put his metal hand lightly on the target’s shoulder.

“You’re hurt.”

The boy looked up, fear in those dark eyes, and his small shoulders hunched in. “I’m okay.”

The Asset shook his head. “Your arm is hurt.”

It was subtle, but the child’s shaking worsened, and his heart rate increased. “Only a little. I’m fine, I’ll be good.”

Something in what he said, the way the child shook with fear, made an emotion that was foreign and powerful rise up from somewhere inside the Asset. An unknown instinct that made him simultaneously want to protect, and also to exact revenge.

Someone had hurt this boy. Many times. Mistreated him enough that he was denying an injury out of fear.

“If you are hurt, you need to show us. The soldier over there, he might be able to help.”

The target looked at the other soldier the Asset nodded towards. “I…” His voice was small, scared, and the Asset squeezed the boy’s hand again as he lowered his head. He finally whispered. “My arm hurts.”

The Asset nodded, glad for the confession. “Show me.”

Without looking up, the target slowly moved his arm away from his stomach, stifling a gasp of pain, and held it out.

It was glaringly obvious that the arm was broken, and moving brought tears to the boy’s eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” The child gasped, taking huge, shaking breaths. “I’m trying not to.”

The Asset’s stomach roiled when he realized the boy was apologizing for crying.

He got the attention of the soldier that had medical training, and called him over. The boy started shaking so hard it jostled his arm, and more than once he bit his lip hard to stifle a cry of pain. 

“_It’s broken_,” The soldier reported, his brows drawing together. He probed at the boy’s arm, testing the bones beneath. “_We’ll have to splint it_.”

The target hadn’t moved during the examination, but the Asset could see the pain clearly written in the tense lines of his body, the way his eyes were squeezed shut and yet tears still ran down his face.

The soldier retrieved the supplies he needed out of the bag, and set them out on the dirt floor. Two thin strips of wood, a rolled up bandage, and a little foil packet with “pain relief tablets” printed on it in Cyrillic.

The soldier gestured to another of the squad, calling him over, then glanced at the Asset. “_Soldat, hold him. He may struggle._”

The Asset nodded and lifted the target into his lap, noting the way that the boy didn’t struggle at all. Instead, he turned those tearful eyes up to look at the Asset, then curled his body closer against him. It made something strange clutch at the Asset’s chest, what he sensed might be an emotion, but he couldn’t quantify it. He was used to shrugging aside things like pain and emotions.

“_Hold him tight now_.”

The Asset tucked the target’s head against his chest, his metal fingers slipping through the untidy dark brown locks. “Be still.” He murmured through his mask. “It will hurt.”

The boy nodded, turning his face further into the Asset’s chest, shaking with suppressed sobs. The Asset wrapped his flesh arm around the target’s torso, holding him firmly, then nodded sharply at the other soldier.

It was quick, but unpleasant. The medical soldier manipulated the broken bones while the other held the upper arm steady, and as the bone was forced back into place, the target jerked in the Asset’s hold, his scream muffled by the Asset’s jacket. He still didn’t struggle, however, and his body went limp once the bone was set.

The Asset glanced anxiously down at the boy’s face, tipping his small head back to see if he was still conscious, and the target looked up at him with wet eyes.

“Is it over?” He whispered, his voice broken.

The Asset frowned, unhappy at his own reply. “Not yet.”

With a suppressed whimper, the target turned his face into the Asset’s chest again, biting his lip.

Splinting the arm with the wood strips and long bandage was obviously painful, but the boy was silent the whole time. Tears continued to leak out of his eyes, soaking a wet patch on the Asset’s tac jacket, but he made no sound.

“_There,_” The soldier with the first aid kit sat back. “_That will hold him until he’s home and can see a doctor_.”

The Asset carefully nudged the target, and waited until he opened his eyes and looked up.

“It’s over now.”

With a shudder, the boy let all the tension out of his body, going dead-weight in the Asset’s lap. He was pale, and damp with sweat, and the Asset’s gaze fell again on the packet of medication.

He tore open the packet and found two round, brown pills inside. Holding one out to the target, he waited for the boy to take it with his uninjured arm, then picked up and uncapped his canteen.

“Swallow it.” He ordered as he helped the target sit up, nodding at the pill, and he waited for the boy to put it in his mouth before helping him hold the canteen. The target struggled, gagging at the feeling of the pill in his throat and dribbling water on himself, but finally he managed to get it down, gasping and spluttering.

“Will it make me fall asleep?” He asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and shivering slightly. “My mama has pills that make her sleep.” It seemed that the enormous stress of the past few minutes had loosened his tongue a little, making him forget to be quiet.

The Asset didn’t mind, and he shook his head as he set the canteen aside. “It will dull the pain.”

Nodding and looking exhausted, the target leaned back against the Asset’s chest. Without thinking, the Asset wrapped both arms around the boy and carefully adjusted his body so he was leaning back, and the target was sitting on his thigh with his head on the Asset’s shoulder. The boy still shivered a little from his wet clothes, and the Asset looked at the first aid kit that was still open nearby.

“_He is cold. Is there an emergency blanket? _”

If the other soldiers looked at him oddly, the Asset didn’t care. He spread the offered silver wrapping over the target and tucked it around him carefully, taking pains not to jostle the splinted arm. Not ten minutes later, the boy was asleep, and the Asset sat motionless as he measured and counted the breaths the target took.

* * *

It had been such a long time. Hours and hours.

Tony didn’t move as he sat in the man’s lap, the man with the mask on his face, drifting in and out of an uneasy sleep.

His arm still hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been before. The man had made him take another pill a little while ago, and he didn’t like doing that at all, but his arm didn’t hurt as much now, or his head.

He was getting hungry again, and he needed to use the bathroom again, but he didn’t want to get up. He was finally warm after he’d gotten his clothes wet, and he knew it would hurt his arm if he started shivering.

The other men with guns had left the big warehouse a little while ago, but now they were back and were looking impatient and angry, pacing around and muttering to each other in Russian. For a little while, Tony listened hard, making a game of finding words that almost sounded like the Hungarian words Ana was teaching him, but he was too tired to play it for long.

Tony continued to doze, waking up often, and he wondered what they were going to do next. He didn’t want to ask, though. He didn’t want to make them mad. If they got mad, they would make him go home.

So he was going to be good. He would behave, and be quiet and be good enough that they would let him stay with them.

He didn’t want to go back. Even though he would miss Mama, and thinking of Jarvis and Ana made him feel like crying again, he didn’t want to go back. These men with the black clothes and the big guns like Howard designed didn’t hurt him, not on purpose. But Howard did. Howard always did.

If Tony were good, really, really good… maybe they would let him stay.


	2. Don't Send Me Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it is time for the boy to return home, the Asset finds himself in a situation nobody is prepared for.
> 
> Tony Stark grows up with something of a ghost over his shoulder, and finally learns why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No fear, my loves, we have a happy ending! Now go back and heed those tags, then feel free to proceed.

Stark wasn’t going to pay the ransom.

It was nearing evening again when the squad finally came to that conclusion, and the Asset wasn’t sure what to think. He wasn’t even sure if he had the understanding required to form an opinion about it. That wasn’t what he was used for.

The only thing he was sure of, was that it made no sense to him that anyone would consider an experimental serum of more value than the child they had taken.

“You’re crazy if you think I’ll give you anything related to Steve Rogers, at any cost.” 

That was what he had said, according to the soldier that had contacted Stark. He had refused, point blank, to surrender the serum they were after, even when they had threatened to kill the target.

The Asset didn’t understand it at all.

“_We should kill him_.” One of the soldiers suggested, looking bored. The Asset noted the way a couple of the others shifted uncomfortably.

“_He’s a child,_” The medical soldier murmured, prompting an eye roll.

“_He’s unwanted baggage_.”

“_We could keep him_,” Another suggested, glancing over at the boy. He was eating again, two more squares of the food bar, occasionally looking over at the soldiers as they tried to make a plan. “_He is smart, perhaps he will be as smart as his father someday. He could be extremely valuable_.”

Another of the soldiers shook his head. “_We have no way to care for him, and he will not be useful this young. We can’t show up at the base with him. The whole world will be looking for him once word gets out._”

“_He is too young now, yes_.” The medical soldier sounded speculative now. “_But there could be a great opportunity there when he is older, and of more value. It would be easy to bring him into the arms of Hydra, with a father like Stark at his back_.”

“_Or we could kill him now and be done with it,_” The first soldier spat, his impatience with the situation getting the better of him as he withdrew a handgun from his tac jacket. “_I’ll do it myself. He’ll feel nothing, if that will ease your conscience._” 

At the sight of the gun, the Asset took a slow, even breath. He shifted his weight, unconsciously taking a fighting stance, his weight braced in his thighs. The other soldiers looked at him, their eyes widening in alarm, hearts quickening with fear.

“_No_.” One of them said firmly to the hot-headed soldier. “_We will think of something else. Soldat, see to the target_.”

The Asset sensed he was being dismissed from the conversation, but nevertheless turned on his heel and returned to the target, sitting back on the ground beside him.

The soldiers crowded in close again, their voices mere whispers that the Asset couldn’t quite make out. But a moment later, they broke apart and began gathering their gear. He could read in their body language that the target was in no danger and the impatient, bloodthirsty soldier looked sour-faced as he stalked out of the warehouse. He relaxed slightly and waited for an update.

“_He is getting the van. We will return the boy_.” The medical soldier told the Asset a moment later, and he nodded. That was acceptable.

The child had pulled the canteen towards himself with his good arm, and was struggling silently with the tightly fastened lid. The Asset uncapped the canteen and helped the boy hold it as he drank, noting his own thirst but pushing it aside.

“How long are we going to stay here?” The boy asked, wiping a trickle of water off his chin when he was done. He felt comfortable talking and asking questions when the other soldiers were occupied, and the Asset had seen even more signs of how unusually brilliant the child was. “There’s not enough food for much longer.”

“We’re leaving soon,” the Asset replied. “We’re taking you home.”

The boy went suddenly very still. “What?”

The Asset’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “We’re taking you back home.”

Panic, utter panic filled those brown eyes. “No! You can’t take me back!”

“_Soldat, what is going on?_ ”

“Please don’t take me back!” the target cried, grabbing on to the Asset’s hand. “You came to take me away, you came to save me!”

“_Soldat, report!_ ”

The boy had climbed into the Asset’s lap now, and had thrown his good arm around his neck, holding on so tight it was slightly difficult to breathe. “Please! I’ll be good! I’ll fix your arm! I’ll be smart for you, I won’t mess up, don’t send me back!”

“_He doesn’t want to go_,” The Asset said, torn between confusion and something else he didn’t understand.

“Please don’t send me back! Please don’t let him hurt me anymore!” The child begged, and the Asset could feel the dampness of tears on his neck.

“_Soldat, take him to the van_.”

The Asset heard the order. His body went to automatically follow it, rising to his feet with the boy still holding on to him.

But he couldn’t seem to make himself go forward.

“_Soldat?_ ”

“Please,” The target whispered, his voice small and broken and so very scared. “I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll be good and I won’t cry and I won’t ask questions and I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Don’t take me back. Don’t let him hurt me anymore.”

The Asset slowly, carefully, wrapped his arms around the boy.

The soldier’s voice was flat now, something in it making goosebumps break out all over the Asset’s body. “_Soldat, put the target down. Now_.”

The boy clung to him tighter, his voice going higher in his panic. “Please, please, please,”

“_Soldat_.”

The Asset… shook his head.

Chaos broke loose.

As the soldiers rushed at him, the Asset moved to take the gun out of his side holster, but realized too late that he had removed it, set it aside so the boy could sleep without it jabbing into his back.

It didn’t matter, though.

The Asset refused to budge, refused to remove his arms from around the sobbing boy, despite repeated orders from the other soldiers, the guns pointed at his face. He… he couldn’t. He couldn’t let them take him. The child would be _hurt_ if they took him back.

He couldn’t let them take him back.

“_Soldat!_ ”

He _would not_ let them take the boy back.

“_Longing,_”

A shock and a buzz in his brain made the Asset blink, but he didn’t release his hold on the child.

“_Rusted,_”

The target was crying again, his voice louder, rising over the sounds of the other soldiers. “Please, don’t take me back! Let me stay with you! Don’t let him hurt me anymore!”

The buzzing was louder, edging on pain, and the Asset felt his limbs twitch.

“_Furnace_,”

And now his knees had gone out from under him, and he was trying so hard, fighting against the pain, trying to protect the body in his arms, but he was starting to lose himself…

“_Daybreak_,”

The target’s voice changed, the pleading gone, a different kind of panic in its place. “What are you doing? What are you doing to him?”

“_Seventeen_.”

The Asset felt the small body flailing in his arms, the young voice screaming, but he couldn’t seem to move or speak.

“Don’t hurt him! I’ll go back! I’ll go back, stop hurting him!”

“_Benign_.”

The Asset’s throat stung, his jaw aching, ears ringing, and he didn’t realize that he was screaming as the child in his arms was finally wrenched away.

“Stop it! Stop hurting him! Leave him alone!”

“_Nine_.”

The static was too much now, pain leaching into every pore of his body, and he couldn’t hear anything. Except the screams.

“_Homecoming_.”

It was all pain. Nothing but screams and static and pain.

“_Take him out of here, quickly!_ ”

“_One_.”

“No! Stop it! Stop hurting him! _Please!_ ” _Slam._

“_Freight car._”

The abrupt silence rang around him.

The Asset took a slow, even breath as he stood up straight, and faced the soldier that had said the words, the faint echo of a scream in his ears. “_Ready to comply_.”

* * *

A policeman found him, sitting on the ground outside the gates at the entrance to the mansion estate, sobbing alone in the dark over twenty-four hours after he was taken.

Mama came out at a dead run a few minutes later, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy, Jarvis following behind her, his face nearly white.

“Oh, Tony, my darling!”

Mama’s arms came around him, and she held him close and smelled like the perfume that Tony loved, but it only made him cry harder. 

“Oh, Jarvis, look at him! They hurt him!” She pulled back and looked at Tony’s arm, gently touching the bandage holding the splints in place. “Jarvis, ring for a doctor immediately. Or should we go straight to a hospital? Go ask Howard, he’ll know.”

Through all the chaos, Tony’s blurry eyes found Jarvis, standing off to the side, nodding as orders were given to him. He met Tony’s gaze, and for a moment, Tony was sure the old man’s eyes filled with tears.

* * *

Tony didn’t stop crying until the nurse at the hospital gave him a shot that made him fall asleep. He didn’t dream at all, and when he woke up, he was in his bed at home, with Ana sleeping in a chair next to him

He sat up slowly, looking down at the white cast on his arm. It ached, but it didn’t hurt like it had before. The bump on his head was better too, it didn’t hurt unless he pushed on it.

A soft tap on the door had him looking up, and Jarvis’s old, familiar face peered in at him.

“Oh, little sir,” Jarvis whispered, and he came into the room quietly. He held a finger to his lips, not wanting to wake Ana, and carefully sat on the edge of the bed. His hand was gentle as it cupped Tony’s cheek, his eyes full of pain. “What did they do to you?”

Tony just shook his head miserably, looking down at the blanket covering his legs. He didn’t want to say it. It hurt on the inside when he thought about it.

“I wish I could beat every single one of them with my bare hands,” Jarvis’ voice was uncharacteristically vicious, and Tony glanced up through his eyelashes to see the anger on his face.

He didn’t like it when Jarvis was angry. With a shaky little sigh, Tony whispered, “They didn’t hurt me.”

“What?” Jarvis leaned closer.

“They didn’t hurt me.” He repeated.

“What do you mean? Tony, look what happened to your arm. And the doctor said you had a concussion as well.” Jarvis’s other hand so, so softly brushed over the bump on his head.

Slowly, very slowly, Tony lifted his eyes, feeling them well up again with tears. “_They_ didn’t hurt me.”

Realization dawned, slowly and horribly on Jarvis’ face, and Tony leaned forward until his forehead was pressed to the fine, neatly pressed black fabric of the butler’s uniform. Jarvis was shaking slightly as he wrapped his arms around Tony, hugging him so gently.

Tony felt tears trickling down his cheeks and thought that maybe, if he closed his eyes tight enough, he could disappear and never get hurt again.

* * *

It happened sometimes, when the Asset had longer missions. Along with the flashes of people he didn’t know, snatches of songs and voices he didn’t remember, there were also screams. A child screaming, the impression of large, teary brown eyes.

The Asset never understood any of it.

But anytime he was sent on a mission that involved Howard Stark, the screams seemed to get louder. And for some reason, he always found himself searching for a reason to get a status update on the Stark heir, Anthony. It was a compulsion that he didn’t understand, but nevertheless allowed himself to follow through on.

In 1981, the Asset had been sent on a mission to infiltrate Stark Industries, to locate and retrieve information regarding some of Stark’s inventions. If he also happened to foil a kidnapping plot and murder an entire squad of foreign agents outside the Stark mansion at the same time, he found no reason to say anything about it. Before he was put under again, he caught a glimpse of a newspaper and a black and white picture on the front. It was a boy, maybe ten or eleven, and there was something so very familiar about those eyes.

In 1988, the Asset was sent to abduct Howard Stark, and he was tailing the man closely as he walked through New York one night, only to receive orders to stand down at the last moment. But then Stark looked behind him, just before the Asset melted into the shadows, and there was something deeply satisfying in the way it felt for the Asset to club him in the side of the head and watch him fall, unconscious, to the pavement. He quickly removed Stark’s wallet, watch, and diamond tie pin, to make the attack look like a mugging before he disappeared. He was a street away, moving in the shadows, when a young man rounded the corner ahead, and the Asset froze where he was.

_Those eyes were so familiar…_

He watched as the youth passed, no more than eighteen years old, and it was several minutes before the Asset was able to continue on.

In 1991, the Asset didn’t understand why he felt a bolt of pleasure and satisfaction when he slammed Howard Stark’s head into the asphalt road until it killed him. He also didn’t understand why, when he went around the car to neutralize the woman, he felt a stab of irritation, and a fragment of a thought whispered through his mind.

_Why didn’t you protect him better?_

He didn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. Because he wouldn’t remember.

* * *

Tony had recognized the metal arm the moment he saw it, in a photograph JARVIS had dug up from the dumped SHIELD files. Shock and a powerful memory from his childhood rendered him almost speechless as he leaned in close, staring at the reflective glint on the metal limb. 

“It can’t be…”

His side project of combing through SHIELD’s files (just in case, you never knew what you might find) immediately became top priority. Within 24 hours, he had turned up enough information to connect the dots, but there was a more. A complex mix of rage, sorrow, and understanding flooding through his mind when Tony found out about his parents.

By the time he finally met James “Bucky” Barnes, the Winter Soldier and Fist of Hydra, the rage was gone. Once he’d known where to look, it had been relatively easy to find out what had happened to Sergeant Barnes. The horrific, sickening things he had gone through, what Hydra had done to him to make him more machine and puppet than man. It wasn’t possible to hold onto anger when faced with that, to know that it had been Barnes’s hands, but certainly not his mind that had committed those atrocities.

It took work, a lot of work and time and patience, but with the help of Cap and one of his new buddies, Sam Wilson, Tony finally found him. It took some negotiating, and more than a bit of forcing Steve to _chill out_ and be patient, but eventually Barnes agreed to come home. 

Tony was waiting when the quinjet landed, watching carefully as Cap, Sam, and finally Barnes disembarked.

The only thing Tony felt when he finally came face to face with the ex-assassin was a sense of faint familiarity, and sadness.

“Hey. I don’t know if you remember me. You kidnapped me once. No hard feelings, though, you did it very nicely.”

Barnes’ brows had knit with confusion, but as Tony took off his glasses and kept talking, his blue-gray eyes went wide. He took a step backward, and cradled his head in both hands.

Tony instantly went on alert, his muscles tensing, waiting for some kind of Hydra-driven lapse. “Hey, you alright?”

Barnes’ eyes flicked up to Tony, just for a moment, then closed again. “Your eyes.”

“What?”

“I remember your eyes.”

A chill, like ice water filling his veins, ran through Tony. He couldn’t possibly… “You remember me?”

After a moment, Barnes’ arms dropped, and he looked uncertain and shaky as he finally met Tony’s gaze.

“I remember your screams.”

* * *

It was disturbing and somehow weirdly comforting when Tony had put the pieces together. Between the things he and Barnes remembered and the evidence Tony had collected, it was a surprise to discover just how many times the Winter Soldier had been directly involved in his life.

And every single time, it had been in a protective way. Murderous and terrifying and definitely morally questionable, but protective nonetheless. Tony was really not sure if he should find that comforting or not.

“I don’t know why,” The guy had replied once when Tony asked him about it. “I don’t know if I ever knew, or if I just don’t remember. It was just… something I had to do.”

It still happened, sometimes. Bucky was recovering, a combination of BARF technology and Princess Shuri’s own brand of technomagic freeing his mind from the tangled web Hydra had spun around it. Every week he got a little better, a little closer to being his own person again, and some of the person he used to be started to come back.

Sometimes, though, when the Asset was particularly close to the surface, Tony would find himself with a bit of a shadow. It didn’t matter if he was in his workshop, or in his office at SI, or lounging in the communal living room. Bucky would find him, say hi or wave a hand, then just kind of linger. He didn’t _do_ anything, he didn’t even have to be particularly close to Tony. He just needed to be in the same room, to be able to see for himself that Tony was safe.

It was bizarre, to be sure, but not much of Tony’s life was normal nowadays anyway. So if Bucky turned up at SI, looking a little more haunted than usual, Tony would wave him over to the couch and have JARVIS beam a game or something interesting into the guy’s phone. If he showed up in the workshop, sometimes he’d be happy to be put to work, and other times he just liked to sit on the couch and pat the bots while Tony worked. In the communal living room or kitchen, they could chat or watch something on the big TV, or just sit in comfortable silence.

Tony did draw the line at his penthouse, however. It only took waking up once with a dark shadow looming over his bed (and subsequently screaming like a little girl and punching said shadow in the face) to put a stop to that.

“Boundaries, Buckaroo.” He wheezed as he tried to get his heart rate back to normal. “We just need some boundaries. If you really have to make sure I’m still alive in the middle of the night, just let me know first, okay?”

Peering at Tony around a bag of frozen peas, with something very much like humor glinting in his eyes, Bucky nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”


End file.
